Wow, this update is long overdue! Thanks for all of you who have stuck with me – I promise you that abandoning it has not crossed my mind. The truth is college demands my time, and I have very little left afterwards. I am still updating this story, but as you can see, it might take a bit. I promise you though that the ride will be worth it. :)

Thanks to faithful Pygmymeese for fitting me into her crazy schedule!

Finally, all recognizable characters belong to Anthony Horowitz.

3:19 pm

It was a day of firsts at MI6. It was the first time many of them had experienced a breach in the system, the first for even more to experience a leak from the inside, and the first for all to experience a Code Three.

They had all been trained for a Code Three, of course. They all knew how it was supposed to go in theory, but theory and reality are often completely different. No one could prepare them for the blood-freezing horror at the thought of being suspected. Not many were well informed of what went on the lower interrogation rooms – the ones that were deep within the bowels of the building where no one could hear you scream – but there were certainly enough rumors to make even the most veteran of agents shudder.

But the lower interrogation rooms were not where Mrs. Jones was headed at the moment. At least not yet. She would undoubtedly visit them sometime within the course of the day, after which she would go back up to her office, into the little private bathroom on the side, and proceed to scrub her hands raw until the cuticles bled. But not yet.

They had to find the traitor first.

Which is why, upon rounding a particularly damp corner in the basement of MI6, she found herself in front of two metal doors, each with a small thick glass window at eye level. Pulling her ID out of a tailored suit pocket, she slid it through a card reader on the right of the first door. With a quiet buzz, the door's locking system released. John Crawley looked up from the file he was reading as she entered.

"What do you have for me, Crawley?" she asked, coming to stand next to him in front of the large, one-way mirror that connected to the neighboring interrogation room.

"Marcus Crayzech. Age 23; a recent recruit straight out of Uni, works on one of our field analyst teams," he recited off obediently, handing her the man's file.

"So he would have had access to the team specs before the recovery even took place," Mrs. Jones said, flipping through filled pages in the manila folder.

Crawley nodded. "The field analysts groups were the first to be searched. We found partially destroyed files on Crayzech's computer which show that he was leaking information concerning Day to an outside source."

Jones absently turned the peppermint in her mouth over with her tongue as she scanned a report. Then, closing the file, she redirected her attention to the young man fidgeting sullenly at the metal table in the next room. "He certainly looks the part," she murmured.

If ever a young adult could be called rebellious, if ever one could be labeled with the stereotypical phrase 'in need of an attitude adjustment,' Marcus Crayzech would be him.

The sleeves of his dress shirt had been rolled back to his elbows, revealing forearms sleeved in tattoos. Shaggy, dyed black hair hung to his eyebrows and brushed his ears, and gauges had stretched his earlobes wide enough to pass a polish sausage through. What sold the look, however, was the crossbreed of a sneer and a scowl that he kept unwaveringly plastered to his face.

"With your permission, ma'am, I'd like to start the interview."

Jones handed the file over to Crawley wordlessly, never taking her eyes from the figure before her. She watched as Crayzech's eyes flitted briefly towards the door as it opened, his lips pulling back in a snarl when he saw who it was.

"Afternoon, Mr. Crayzech," Crawley said, ignoring the waves of hostility that were rolling towards him.

"It's pronounced 'Cray-shjeck,'" the man bit out. "What am I doing here?"

Crawley gave a cold smile as he seated himself on the other side of the table. "I see your file doesn't exaggerate." He flipped a few pages into it. "Written up twice for insubordination since you were hired last year." He looked up questioningly, as if waiting for a response, but Crayzech remained stone-faced. "You have a problem with authority."

Crayzech gave a derisive snort, flicking his hair out of his eyes. "Only the idiotic, over-paid prat you've stuck me with. The man couldn't triangulate a location if you gave him the coordinates. Look, I've already had a thorough dressing down from Internal Affairs, so let's just cut the crap and not waste any more time pretending like you're interested in the affairs of someone who's second to last on the food chain, alright?"

"You're very astute, Mr. Crayzech," Crawley said, an unmistakable predatory gleam in his eye. "It's a pity you didn't use that intelligence to consider the consequences of selling government secrets to the enemy."

There was a moment of pregnant silence while what had just been said was processed, and then, hit by the seriousness of the accusation, the apathetic mask the young man had been holding so tightly to slid away, revealing a myriad of emotions. First it was confusion, which was replaced by horror, and then anger. "You're kidding, right?" Crayzech sat up a little straighter in his seat. "This is a bloody joke!"

"I don't believe MI6 makes it a habit to joke about matters of national security, Mr. Crayzech," Crawley said coolly. He slipped a paper out of the file and slid it across the table with the tips of his fingers. "As an analyst, you should know that it's extremely difficult to permanently erase things from a computer's hard drive. Fortunately for us, you're not as adept as it as you would like to think. These partial files reveal that you were spilling information concerning Alex Rider and our operations to Day."

Terror flitted across the young man's face as he scanned the document. His fingers curled around the edge of the table. "These aren't mine! I hadn't even heard of Day until yesterday!"

Crawley didn't even seem to register the protests. "How much was he paying you, Crayzech? Because I guarantee it won't be enough to buy your way out of the dark hole we reserve for traitors."

"Somebody is setting me up!" Crayzech's was completely pale now, contrasting harshly with his inky black hair. His voice grew louder in volume, edged by hysteria. "I've never seen any of this stuff before in my life, I swear!"

"Mrs. Jones?" Tulip tore her eyes from the scene in front of her to see a nervous looking intern hovering by the partially-open door. "W-We have a situation; they said your presence is needed immediately." With a sigh she gave a nod of acknowledgement before turning back to the interrogation.

"-because I hacked my bosses account doesn't mean I would pair up with a terrorist! All I did was put a harmless pop-up virus on his computer!"

Mrs. Jones reached for the button on the wall by the window that allowed her to speak into the room. She'd seen enough.

"To teach him a lesson, right? Just like you thought you'd teach the govern-"

"Crawley." The occupants of the room jumped at the bodiless voice that suddenly filled the room. Crawley swiveled around in his chair to look at the one way mirror, though all he saw was his reflection. "A word, please." The agent opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "Now."

His mouth snapped shut into a thin line. "Yes ma'am," he said, grudgingly turning back to the table to collect the papers.

Mrs. Jones studied the young man's body language as Crawley left the room, finding her initial niggle of doubt steadily growing. She knew what liars looked like. That meant that Crayzech was either a very, very good liar, or he was innocent. And she was leaning towards innocent. It simply worked together too well. His profile, his past infractions, his attitude – if someone was looking for someone to throw under the bus, Marcus Crayzech would be a prime candidate.

She watched as a guard came in and cuffed the vehemently protesting young man, not even glancing as her agent entered the room.

"It seems we've found our man." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Crawley smile like a cat who'd swallowed a canary. "We can have him transferred to our interrogators downstairs to see whether he was working with anyone else."

Tulip remained stone-faced at the mention of their more...unethical...forms of questioning, however distasteful she found the subject. "That won't be necessary at the moment, Mr. Crawley," she said. "We have a more pressing issue at the moment. I want you to head up to the situation room and make sure there is a report ready for me when I get there. I will be up in a few minutes."

Crawley's eyebrows furrowed and she could tell that he wasn't ready to drop his role as interrogator so quickly. They both knew that he would not refuse, though. "Yes ma'am," he said obediently, if a little stiffly.

Her eyes never strayed from the now empty chair in the interrogation room even as he left. Perhaps it was because she too deeply engrossed in the thought that there was something much deeper going on here than they knew, and were possibly even ready for.

Closing her eyes with a sigh, she pulled out her cell phone and called the only person she was absolutely sure she could trust. She was going to get to the bottom of this, and she would take down whoever stood in her way to do it.

LiveAndLetDie

3:20 pm

It took three endless minutes for the dust to clear enough for Alex to see anything. Lifting himself gingerly on his elbows and wiping the bits of brick and concrete from off of his chest and legs, he surveyed the damage. The previously pitch black stairwell was now dotted in light as some of the outer bricks above them had crumbled away in the explosion; thick, gray dust swirled hauntingly through the beams that streamed in.

Wetness pooled into his eye, and Alex tentatively raised a hand to wipe it away. His fingers came back slick, but the warm blood soon became thick and tacky in the musty air. Muttering a swear, he wiped his hand on his shirt. His fingers froze against the frayed fabric as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. There was someone in there. He could feel their eyes on him.

The muscles in his neck tensing painfully, he slowly turned his head, peering into the corners of stairwell. The dust moved in and out of the light forming phantom shapes that dissolved as soon as they were formed. He watched them for a moment, before turning back, only half convinced that he had been wrong.

His head snapped up towards the stairs at the sound of a muffled footstep. There, at the top of the flight of stairs, stood the outline of a man. The edges of his dark hair and gray trench coat could just be distinguished from the darkness around him. His face was shadowed, and though Alex was unable to see the man's eyes, he could feel them fixed on him. They stayed like that for a moment, the man staring down at him and Alex staring up, before the stranger spoke.

"You should leave." The man spoke with a crisp American accent, absent of any drawl that might tie him to a state or region. "They will be here within seven minutes." With that simple message, he turned to leave.

"Wait!" Alex struggled to get to his feet, ignoring the pain that shot through every nerve in his body. "Who is-" He growled as another drip of blood trickled in his eye. "Who are 'they'?" he asked, savagely swiping it away. But by the time his vision was clear again, the man was gone. Alex swore, running a hand through his blood and dust matted hair. He didn't have time for any more cryptic warnings right now.

Kicking a chunk of brick in a rare display of frustration, he turned back to where Snake and Eagle lay on the cement floor. The medic was stirring from where he had thrown himself on top of his unconscious friend, bearing the brunt of the blast.

"Snake?" he whispered, moving gingerly through the rubble towards them. "You with me?"

The man grunted in response, rolling off of his teammate and promptly vomiting into the rubble. "Yeah," the man rasped, spitting the remaining bile from his mouth and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "I'm here."

Alex, relieved that he wasn't going to have to somehow drag two men up and out of the building, crouched by Eagle's side to check on him. Snake, forgetting his own injuries, was already there, though, gently rolling his friend onto his back and placing two fingers under the man's jaw in search for a pulse.

"It's there," he said after a moment. "And strong."

Alex sighed and wiped away another streak of blood that had dribbled into his eye. "Can he be moved?" he asked, thinking back to the stranger's warning. "The feds will be swarming the place in minutes."

Snake paused, head turning just enough to let Cub see the acidic look in his eyes. "And just why are we running away from the feds?" his voice was low, threatening. "You haven't gone and switched sides on us again, have you?"

Alex thought his teeth would crack from the force he gritted them together with. It was a low blow – they both knew it. Alex's tryst with Scorpia had been when he was fourteen. "Now's not the time to bring our personal problems into this, Snake," he said icily. "There are people's lives–your teammates' lives–on the line!"

Snake rose to his feet, hands clenched. "And since when did you care about teammates?"

Alex took a breath, trying to push down the rising tide of red anger that threatened to flood over him. He'd been expecting their unresolved issues to spark some tension, but not this downright hostility. Especially after the way Eagle had acted towards him. "Look," he said, "I know you don't agree with what I did, Snake, but we have to go. Now."

"I don't think so." They two of them were now standing practically nose to nose over Eagle's body, muscles tensed like feral animals ready for a fight. "Eagle needs medical attention, and I'm not going to let you drag us into whatever shit you're mixed up in. Take it to the feds. Besides," he sneered, giving Alex a small, forceful shove, "last time someone followed you, you got them shot."

Alex's eyes darkened at that comment. "Shut your mouth," he growled.

"Or else what, Cub?" Snake taunted. The soldier scoffed when the teen didn't respond. "You're nothing but a selfish little bra-"

Alex punched him. Hard.

Snake stumbled back a step, eyes narrowing as he saw the bright red blood on his hand from his freshly broken nose. With a low growl, he shook it off and launched a right hook back at Alex. With a quick upward thrust, Alex was able to swat Snake's hand away, but wasn't ready for the fist in the side he received from the man's other hand. The solid blow and the culmination of the day's injuries sent him to his knees, gasping for air. He watched through watering eyes as Snake stepped over his fallen friend towards him.

It had been stupid to punch him. Not only was it wasting time, but Alex knew that he wouldn't be able to win this fight. If Snake managed to knock him unconscious, then it was all over. The feds would take him in and hundreds of people would die. The man didn't trust him anymore, but he had to try to make him understand.

"Snake," he panted, trying to get to his feet. "You have t-to listen to me." He staggered back a few steps to put distance between them. "We can't go t-to the feds. He said he'd blow up the hospital, just like he blew up t-this one." Snake's approach didn't falter. Alex quickly cast a glance around him for something he could use to defend himself. While he didn't want to fight the man, he couldn't allow himself to be taken in. He spotted a thick piece of wood lying at his feet and grabbed it, ignoring the splinters that dug into his palm.

"What are you going to do with that, Cub? Stab me in the back?" Snake sneered.

Alex was now back up against what was left of the door they had come through, sagging against it slightly for support. "Snake, we need to-"

"No, Cub," the man said threateningly, grabbing ahold of the front of Alex's shirt with one hand and tearing the piece of wood from his grip with the other, "what I need is to drag your ungrateful, preferably unconscious, arse back to MI6 so I can contact my commander and go find the rest of my team."

Alex struggle weakly as Snake raised his fist to deliver the final blow, but the soldier's grip only tightened even more painfully. But, even as the man moved to strike, he was forced to pause as beams of artificial light suddenly cut across the semi-darkness. Snake's head whipped around in surprise; Alex's eyes closed in defeat.

"Police! Get on ground now!"

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